OAP driver caused collision which left another motorist with horrific injuries

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Jon Cooper

Published:11:56Updated:12:55Friday 29 June 2018

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A careless OAP driver caused a serious accident which left another motorist so badly injured she is petrified of getting behind the wheel again.

Leslie William Gibson, 87, was so distracted after hitting another vehicle’s wing mirror on Brimington Road North, Chesterfield, he went into the path of an on-coming Nissan Micra, according to a Chesterfield magistrates’ court hearing.

Chesterfield magistrates' court.

Prosecuting solicitor Becky Allsop told the court on Wednesday, June 27, that Gibson’s white Hyundai i30 passed and connected with another car’s wing mirror before drifting into the lane of an on-coming Nissan Micra and colliding with this vehicle.

Mrs Allsop said: “It drifted into her lane and the white car hit her. She states she was driving a Nissan Micra and the force of the car spun it round and her legs were trapped.”

Emergency services were called out, according to Mrs Allsop, and the Micra driver had to be cut free from the vehicle.

Mrs Allsop added the Micra driver suffered a fractured left knee and femur which was broken in four places and needed a rod inserting, a lacerated right knee, a fractured right hip, bruising to a lung and a cut to her right elbow.

The Micra driver stated that the thought of driving again petrifies her and she has suffered financially since the collision because her injuries have taken so long to heal.

Gibson, of Loads Road, at Holymoorside, Chesterfield, told police he heard a bang when he passed a car and when he turned he was confronted with another vehicle in front of him.

He added that he swerved but went into the path of the Nissan Micra.

Gibson accepted to police it would not have happened if he had kept his eyes on the road.

The defendant pleaded guilty to driving without due care and attention after the collision on April 28.

He told the court he had come up behind another vehicle and turned to his right to see where the sound of a bang had come from and then he pulled round to the right as the car in front was braking and his airbag activated.

Gibson also told the court: “I have been driving since 1953 and it’s the first time I have had an accident.”